
f 440 



Qass 

Book y aq 



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SPEECH ^ 

OF 

HON. GEOUGE E. PUaH, 

O IF OHIO, 

ON THE STATE OF THE UNION. 

DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, DECEMBER 20, 1860. 

James Madison, who recorded with so much fullness and accuracy the protracted 
debates of the convention which formed the Constitution of the United States, at 
the close of his labors, thought it not beneath the dignity of a historian to report an 
anecdote, scarcely less memorable from the fact that he reported it, than from its con- 
nection with two of the most illustrious characters of the time. He tells us, that while 
the members of the convention were signing the Constitution, on Monday, the 17th of 
September, 1787, Dr. Franklin, " looliing towards the President's chair, at the back of 
which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him that 
painters had found it difficult to distinguish, in their art, a rising from a setting sun. I 
have, said he, often and often, in the course of the session, and in the vicissitudes 
of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President, without being 
able to tell whether it was rising or setting ; but now, at length, I have the happiness to 
know that it is a rising, and not a setting, sun." (Madison Papers, vol. 3, page 1624.) 

Senators ! Our millions of constituents, with all the nations of the civilized world as 
witnesses, are gazing at the lurid sky overhead; fearing, and almost expecting, that the 
sun which Franklin sawrising behind the chair of Washington, will be at once, and forever, 
extinguished in midheaven, insteadof continuing to shine more and more brightly, if not 
in endless day, until we, and our children, and our children's children, have perished 
and been forgotten. 

My colleague [Mr. Wade] in addressing the Senate, on Monday last, told us that when 
he left his home, in Ohio, he had heard of no discontent, and apprehended no evil; that 
all seemed to be quiet and prosperous and cheerful. Such was not my fortune, nor waa 
such the condition of the people with whom I reside, and whom I more especially repre- 
sent. On the contrary, for a month past, in the city of Cincinnati, we have listened, 
from day to day, while strange tempests gathered and muttered above us. It is a year 
of plentiful harvests, and yet all the departments of our trade and industry are obstructea, 
and all our energies are paralyzed. Laboring men find no employers ; merchants have 
no customers ; and property of every description is depreciated almost beyond example. 
The credit and the confidence of a great commercial center have sustained some shock 
of unwonted violence. My colleague cannot persuade me, therefore, that all is well, and 
that those who are alike his constituents and mine, in the southern portion of Ohio, have 
only to fold their arms and assure themselves that no mischief is about to happen. 

As to the causes of so much calamity, if the resolution proposed by the Senator from 
Kentucky [Mr. Powell] had been adopted at once, and as my distinguished friend from 
Illinois [Mr. Douglas] pertinently suggested, in a spirit of concord, with no crimination 
from either side, I would not now allude to them. But my colleague does not permit 
me thus to remain silent. He has, himself, put the Republican party upon trial ; and, 
without waiting for any attack, has challenged the entire Senate to say wherein the 



P^7 



He assiimpfi tlTot ; i .. . _ i '""Jibe to 



attained control of any Government, for the S time i ^ ^ ^'''^ "^"^ ^ I'^'ifical party has 

control, for years pasftlmUwrn'' ^f -^-"^ ''^^ ^''^'^^ of ^'hich it 's K d"" v'"f "." 
hereafter, as^o mSrm fti"; J i^ 'thn'ti "'"f '■■''^ Government o 1 1 \t„ Jecl S?. ' 
their tranquillity and hap^ines . ""'°'^^'' ''""'^^^ ^^^^ P-^P^rity, and even Itl 



:es, 
destroy 



dent of the United StS:"'an^trdS;f:^'^::;^ea'^"^^ ^'^^ ^^^^^^^^^ ^'^r^Z 
enter upon the duties of that oW^e not nSlv with 'T'^ "' '"^ ^^''^"^«- ^ "■'■^'' 1''°^ '« 
confadence, the cordial good wished, of the neo Jo S, , t, °''''fxT'°'^' ^"^ ^'^^l' "^« ^'"tire 
tive Magistrate he aspires to he. ' ^ ""' ^""^^' ^^'^'i ^orth, whose Chief Execu- 

AJy colleague is of opinion howpr,..- fi, f ,i • • 
m him, and others like him, L dne]l^Ct^^^'}:;'^^f^^^^oftl.eSonthe.n people 
f they would only listen to Republican or to- ". '''^''''' ^Northern men ; that 

hen- minds would be altogeth r dSu",; The%7'". "'f Republican newspapers, 
Hale] was greatly troubled", also, abo t t^l 1^ J^' \o t') ^ ^'""^ ^'" Hampshire [Mr! 
recollect rightly, as " traitors " t^ their own sec o^Avn '?,'^\^Ve^^^'^g of them, if I 
see that .Senator in the Chamber, I will Tot say whnt" of 1 ''^'- ^7^*^'^"^ ^^ I do' not 
pnate. But the fact that any Northern man ira<,f""'' "l'^^' ^'"^''^ ^'''' m^'O- 
estrmation of the Republican l^xders mereini4use 1 fd^^^^^^ V°.^' ""° ^°^^'^'^'"' "^ ^'^^^ 
ern peupk-as he supposes them to be-under a form "f ''^ ''' ''^'^'' '^''"'''- 

and Jhe .North have common interests wS accu atTnn r?/'r'^\'" "'^^'^^^ ''^^ South 
publican party, in the ears of a Southern iiidieucenr 1-^" °^''^' ='^''^'"^* the Re- 

anyuhere, more condemnatory than Ih "? t'3 'a" « "■'' 'm '^''"'' °^ fair-minded men, 
me, for example, more than he credits my c^Jl^u ' He t' "'"'" «[ Alabama credit 
Avho act with me, politically, in the State of t^hi? as mmd, ^t , ''T'''^ ^^' ''^"'^ ^hose 
cused h.m and those who support him What meansTf ' ''*' ''^ '"" '''"^^^ '^'^ ^C" 

the South or elsewhere, to which he and hi foiwt ', ^''''''"^ cvedenee have we, in 
not be ignorant of the foct, that the opnonents of .L T ' "?•* ''^"^'' ""''''' ^ ^' ^'^n- 
State, were his political allies when Te' belo :ed to the W f "''^'/" ''''^ S""*^^'^'"" 

Nor can he shut his eyes to the fact that m he. tL "^ pa.'ty,and never werem^e. 

ocratic party of Ohio, in the iVt p'retdVnt hi canvasTa l""^ "''-""^ "'"' '''' ^^'"- 
ni every slaveholdiug State, except UulZTLiTr '1 ^'"'^^ majority of Democrats 
folly, therefore, to pretend luu t he Sou.r • '. , "thercaudidates. Whatabsolute 

tions against him, except -Lthei^ii f"^'"T ^^ ^^^''^^^ my accusa- 

againstmel ' ^ ^ ^''^" '"^"°^^*^ ^'^'^> than to believe his accusations 

Th^'se:::t:;;:^i::r^^::^S:^,-;i;;^^ - >^-^^y ^-t. 

felIow-pai1isansfromdaytodavLdfrnn?v ^ ^^^'i^^ ^''^^ °«<^ hear him and his 
no report of his saying^^ere and ^^fse wl erfv' P*° ^''^' ! I' ^^'''' "" '''°''^ °f '''« ^'«te., 
lican newspaper, it theyvvish a r," 1 v f T' the Southern people read a Repub-' 
heard and ieen oo much tm.; not ic^re/"^' T "' '■ ^^ ' ^^^••' '^'' '^''''' ''^^ ^'^'-^d '.nd 
:^ut as for my colleague, ha'4"g'L"own |?n%b; the'l'' r"'"^' '''' ""''• ''' '"' ^'^''^''^"^ ' 
gress, they regard an Administra ion , vir wi . nine years, as a Senator in Con- 

abhorrouce. ^"ministtation o^er which he can exercise intiuenee with absolute 



Woet. Eee. Hlfc^. So« 



But, gentlemen of the Republican party, what has ever been said of you, by the North- 
ern Democracy, that you would now deny ? Give me the specification. Do you deny 
that you are in favor of excluding the Southern people from all the Territories of the 
United States, except on condition of leaving their slaves at home ? Do you deny that 
,► you are in favor of such exclusion, even where the inhabitants of the Territory oppose 
ui 'it? My colleao-ue {Lvowcd that, distinctly, in his speech of Mondaj^ last. Do you deny 
•• that you are in favor of surrounding the present sluveholding States with new States and 
with Territories from which slavery is thus excluded? And what can be your purpose, 
in all this, unless it be to render the institution of shivery so insecure, in the States where 
it now exists, as to compel them, by an instinct of self-preservation, to emancipate their 
slaves? Did not my colleague boast, in his speech, that when the slaveholding States had 
seceded — if, unfortunately, they ever should secede — from our present Union, and formed 
another union of their own, he and his Republican allies would conquer, or else annex, 
the remainder of Mexico, and thus secure a government better than we now liave — a 
government " more magnillcent, more powerful, and more just " than the world liad ever 
seen? Whether the free-negro colonies which my colleague proposed to establish, in 
Central America and southern Mexico, were to be the subjects of or equal participants in 
this new government, I did not exactly understand. 

Do you deny that you are unfavorable to the execution of the several acts of Congress, 
now in force, for the re-delivery of fugitive slaves ? What mean those various acts of 
legislation, in nearly all the States which you control, referring to that subject? They 
do not, perhaps, directly assail the right of a master to the service and labor of his slave; 
but their manifest design is so to encompass every claimant with penalties and snares and 
pitfalls, on every side, that he will abandon his claim under the Constitution and laws of 
the United States, rather than assume such risks in pursuing it. 

• Do you deny that, in the States which you control, you are in favor of conferring the 
"right of suffrage, with all other political rights, upon negroes and mulattoes ? No such 
legislation prevails in any State which you do not control. I do not saj- that it now 
prevails in every State which you control, but certainly it prevails in most of them. It 
is a distinct feature of your partisan policy ; so much so that, in the State of Ohio, des- 
pite the language of our Constitution aud laws, written as plainly as language could be 
written, your partisan Court has, within the last twelve months, conferred the riglit of 
suffrage upon a sufficient number of persons tainted with African blood to control the 
result of our last October election. 

These are all the accusations I have brought against you ; and I have made them — 
not to the people of any Southern State, whom I seldom address, but to my own constit- 
uents — to the free aud qualified electors, of Caucasian blood, in the State of my birth 
and residence. I shall repeat them, knowing them to be true, year after year, as long as 
I live, or until j-ou repent of such enormous and shameless transgressions. 

A few words more, Mr. President, in regard to those personal liberty bills. I have 
characterized them sufilciently in general terms ; they are of little, if any, practical ef- 
fect or operation. The State of Vermont, where, according to the confession of her 
Senator [Mr. Collamer] there has not been a fugitive slave in forty years, found it ne- 
cessary (as he would persuade us) to enact a law of stringent penalties, lest, perchance, 
a slave might be reclaimed, within her limits, otherwise than as the acts of Congress pre- 
scribe. What could be tije motive for such an enactment? Nothing, sir, nothing, un- 
less it be to insult the feelings and outrage the sentiments of our fellow citizens in the 
Southern States. The Senator acknowledged that it could have no other intention; be- 
cause he acknowledged, almost in terms, that no human being, white or black, would 
ever come within the operation of such a law. In the border States, like my own, 
whenever such legislation has been attempted, except in a few notorious localities, the 
people, of all parties, thoroughly despise such pitiful, quibbling, and trickj' schemes, and 
therefore do not observe them. For example: in 1857, a Republican Legislature of Ohio 
enacted that if any person should bring a slave into the State for a single instant, even 
with the slave's consent, be or she should be punished with fine and imprisonment. 
More than a thousand persons violated that act, in the city of Cincinnati, within less than 
six mouths ; but nothing came of it. They went from Cincinnati in every direction, 
through the State, seeking places of sojournment for the summer. What decent man 
would enforce any such law? Suppose that some mother, carrying her infant from the 
heat and peril of July or August in Louisiana, should fly to a place of refreshment in 
Ohio, and having no other nurse (as, in Louisiana, they have not) should be accom- 
panied by some faithful slave : where is the man — for I know that my colleague would 
not — who would suVjject that mother to fine and imprisonment ? Yet, sir, gentleaien like 
the Senator from Vermont [Mr. Collamer] and my colleague, who profess devotion to 
the Union of the States, and would not violate the courtesies of daily life, adhere to a 



political party which thus reduces an act of mercy to the grade of ar^n, rape and rob- 
bery, and threatens outrages which, by the comity if not the law of nations, would furnish 
a justifiable cause of war. uiuimsu 

Those bills, I repeat have no practical operation ; but they exasperate our fellow citi- 
zcns ot the feouthern fctates by exposing them and their institutions to derision. I ac 
cord, therefore and fully with the venerable and eminent Senator from Kentucky fMr. 
Crittenden] that, first of all, as an obvious duty, not so much to the Southern people 
as because it cncerns our own decency and honor, we, of the non-slaveholding States! 
Bhould expunge from our statute-books, at once and forever, all such enactments. The 
Democra ic party of Ohio discharged that duty, plainly, faithfully, and nobly, two years 
ago. ^^llat we have to fear at present is, that the Republican Legislature about to re- 
assemble at Columbus, on the first Monday of January, will restore what ha^ been ex- 
punged. My colleague promised the Senator from Georgia [Mr. ToombsI hist winter in 
BO many words, that those laws should be restored. I wait to learn whether his nartv 
will sustain or repudiate him. ^ ^ 

My colleague said, also, that I had testified "magnanimously" to the fidelitr of the 
Republican party in respect to the restoration of fugitive slaves. He does me honor over 
much. 1 intended no such testimony, and do not, if that be its price, deserve his com 




assertion of that sort, uncontradicted, might aid in exciting the people of Georgfa at a 
t ime ot already too much excitement and alarm. They might well credit if that were al- 
lowed to pass without challenge, an assertion thart the people of the Northern States had 
lost all honesty and truthfulness. I told the Senator from Georgia, therefore that a 
large majority of the people of Ohio were, this day, in favor of a strict and faithful exe- 
cution ot the fugitive slave law ; but I did not tell him, and never imarnned for one in- 
Btant, that a majority of the Republican party were. No, sir ; a rainoritt- of the Republi- 
cans, with all the Itemocratic party in Ohio, and all the Americans or Union men, are 
EO ; and our strength is principally in the southern and central portions of the State. I 
erred, and, strangely enough, will convict myself in that, when I told the Senator from 
Georgia we never had more than one mob, in Ohio, resisting the execution of that law : 
because there was another case, at least, in which I was retained as counsel, beside the 
one to which I alluded. The fact escaped my recollection at the instant; but the law 
was, nevertheless, carried into substantial effect. The point of my allusion to the 
Supreme Court of Ohio, in wliat is commonly known as the Oberlin case, was not that the 
Republican party, but three out of five judges, in spite of their partisan affinities, obeved 
the law. My colleague has not forgotten the sequel of that decision, nor how the Re- 
publican party, in State convention, with himself as presiding officer, in less than a week 
dismissed the chief justice, Joseph R. Swan, from any further employment. The gentle- 
man nominated and elected in Judge Swan's place is, I believe, in favor of executing the 
fugitive slave act ; but no thanks to Republican leaders and managers— they did not 
know it at the time of his nomination. Now, sir. my colleague, having officiously called 
me to the stand as a witness, can make the most— he cannot deny it^of what I have 
testified. 

With respect to fugitives from justice— of which so much has been said— 1 will make 
one observation. The behavior of Governor Dennison, in refusing to comply with the re- 
quisition of Governor Magoffin, is utterly indefensible; but the Senator from Kentucky [Mr 
Powkll] attaches entirely too much importance to the case. It is not the first case of that 
kind, nor the second, nor the fiftieth. Un the contrary, in most of the States, a miserable 
habit has grown upon Governorsofsacrificingthe plainest obligation of their duty, under the 
Constitution of the United States, to appease some local and perhaps temporary excitement. 
Instead of observing, as every one of them ought to observe, that the Constitution is a 
treaty of universal extradition, and that each State is under the most solemn compact to 
assist in executing the laws of every other State, so far as fugitives are concerned, the 
Governors and even the Courts of nearly all the States seem to have arrived at the'con- 
clusion that a fugitive from justice shall not be surrendered, upon constitutional demand, 
unless the crime with which he has been charged is cognizable at common law, or is 
alike a crime in the State of refuge and in the State from which he fled. It is 
wholly indefensible, Mr. President, in every case; and New Jersey is the only border 
State, so far as I recollect, which has truly discharged her obligation in this parti- 
cular. But now, if we should be able to amend the Constitution at all, I trust that mj 
honorable friend from Kentucky [Mr. Crittenden] under whom I have enlisted for this 
campaign, will propose some words of amendment so plain as to obviate ail such un- 
ceemly controversies hereafter. 



Thus much, sir, because if I had not corrected my colleague, I should have appeared 
in a Mse position. I did not interrupt him, on Monday last, because others interrupted 
him too much, and hardly allowed him to develop, as he might otherwise have done, the 
whole scope of his argument. 

My colleague declared, also, that the Republican party had taught no new doctrine with 
regard to the subject of slavery in the Territories. Suppose that were all true ; sup- 
pose, after ever so long an acquiescence in its policy, or ever so cordial an approval, the 
people of fifteen States had now ascertained, for the first time, that such a policy must 
be injurious to them, to their interests, to their future prosperity: what reasonable ob- 
jection has my colleague to assign (or any one else) for not rendering the Union as bene- 
ficial to those States as it can possibly be rendered, without injury to others, in any res- 
pect whatsoever ? But the declaration of my colleague is not true. The policy of our 
Confederation, from the beginning, has been to allow the slaveholding as well as the non- 
slaveholding States an equal opportunity for colonization and development. The 
Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Wilson] shakes his head. Well, sir, I understand the 
history of our country quite as well as he does; and I say that it was determined, in 
1787, by the legislative action, or, at least, the legislative tendency of the several 
States, that the Hue between Delaware, Maryland and Virginia upon the one side, and 
Pennsylvania upon the other, would be a line of separation, indefinitely, between the 
slaveholding and the non-slaveholding States of the Confederacy ; and that suggested the 
Ohio river as a fixed and natural boundary westward to what was then our westermost 
line of limitation. The territory northwest of the Ohio river was devoted to colonization 
from the non-slaveholding States, or those about to become such ; while Kentucky, then 
part of Virginia, but expecting soon to be a sep:irate State, together with the territories 
now embraced by Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama, remained to slaveholding immi- 
gration and settlement. Afterwards, at the time of the Missouri compromise, in March, 
1820, President Monroe yielded his doubts in regard to the constitutionality of that ar- 
rangement, because it carried into eifect, substantially, what the original States had them- 
selves ordained. It was, in truth, a partition of territory between tenants in common. 
And now, the Republican party, which has ever justified its own origin and existence, 
and, more than all, its intensely sectional character, by arguments drawn from the abro- 
gation of the Missouri compromise line, in 1854, must either accept the proposition of 
my distinguished and venerable friend from Kentucky [Mr. Crittenden] or confess it- 
self a delusion and a snare from the comuieucement. 1 accept his proposition, and in 
good faith, shall vote for it. Yet, sir, except the Senator from Connecticut, [Mr. Dixon,] 
who addressed us so pertinently and so eloquently, and with such honor to his con- 
stituents, iu the early part of last week, I have not heard one man, upon the Republi- 
can side of this Chamber, pronounce a syllable of approbation, or even of compromise. 
Senators, it is time for you to speak ; and may God grant that you will speak wisely for 
yourselves, as well as for me ! 

Why cannot we, of the non-slaveholding States, consent, immediately and cordially, 
that the slaveholding States of the Union shall have as ample scope and verge, propor- 
tionable to their numbers, as we have, for the development of their form of civilization? I f 
you, Republicans, believe (as I do not) that there is any antagonism between their civili- 
zation and ours, within the same organized community, then divide the public domain, 
and allow them, as well as ourselves, equally and separately, to have room. Our present 
Territories are large enough, and most of them are uninhabited ; but, if you think other- 
wise, we can purchase or conquer more. You must either agree with me, or you must 
answer me, distinctly, this great question : Is the institution of African servitude, as it 
now prevails in the Southern States, so hateful to you, so barbarous and sinful in your 
estimation, that you cannot suffer it to exist, with your tolerance, anywhere ? If so, 
how can we ever hope for peace in a Union of slaveholding and non-slaveholding 
States? It is impossible that two great sections, the one fervently attached to an in- 
stitution which the other so much abhors, can arrive at anj^ terms of conciliation. You 
cannot adopt that alternative, therefore, without expressing yourselves Disunionists in 
principle and Disunionists at heart. 

The question becomes very material, also, in view of another clause in the proposition 
which my venerable friend from Kentucky [Mr. Crittenden] has submitted, namely, 
that Congress never shall prohibit the existence of African slavery in the forts, arsenals, 
and dock-yards, situated within the limits of a slaveholding State, and shall not abolish 
it, in the District of Columbia, so long as the institution prevails in the adjacent States 
of Maryland and Virginia, nor, even when they shall have abolished it, except with the 
consent of the people residing here, and upon terms of just compensation. If you can 
agree to that j)ropositiou — as I hope you will — you can agree, by the very same ar- 
gument, to divide our common Territories between slaveholding and non-slaveholding 



civilization. Do not attempt to avoid me, Senators, even in the secrecy of your own 
hearts. What you have to decide now, and to decide for all tiuie, is whether, in your 
estimation, slavery is or is not so hateful that j-ou are under a conscientious obligation 
to abolish it, or prevent it, wherever you have the power. If yea, the Union is now dis- 
solved ; it never, in fact, had any but a nominal existence. 

Observe, Senators, if this be your doctrine, that you are only absolved, in the light of 
your own consciences, from the duty of abolishing slavery in the States where it now 
exists, by the fact you ha^'% no constitutional power respccVing it. But is it not your duty, 
under such admonitions of conscience, to divide the large States, New York, Pennsyl- 
vania, and Ohio, or by the admission of new States, with or without adequate popula- 
tion, to arm yourselves, through an amendment of the Federal Constitution, with what- 
ever [lowers may be re(|uisite? 

I juopound to you this alternative, as deciding the whole controversy in the simplest 
terms. It includes everything, and puts everything to an immediate and decisive and 
eventful issue. 

My colleague said that the character of Mr. Lincoln, the President elect, from his 
youth upward, ought to afford a sufficient guaranty that he would never infringe, by his 
administration, the rights or the security of the people, South or North, in any particular. 

Well, sir, I know notliiug to Mr. Lincoln's personal discredit ; I hope well of him, and 
even desire to think well of him. But I must be permitted to say, despite all this, despite 
the assurance of my colleague, that, singularly enough, Mr. Lincoln is the most obscure 
man ever elected to the Presidency of the United States. He may be an excellent man, 
worthy in all respects, but he has had less experience in public affairs, and is less known 
to the country at large, than any of his predecessors. My colleague may have learned 
Mr. Lincoln's character since the nomination at Chicago; but I think it safe to affirm 
that, of the million who voted for him, in November last, ninety-nine hundredths never 
heard of him until his contest with my friend from Illinois [Mr. Douglas] about 
two years ago. 

Mr. WADE. I ask the Senator whether he had well studied Mr. Buchanan's charac- 
ter before he voted for him ? 

Mr. PUGH. Yes, sir, I had ; but where is the pertinency of such a question? 

Mr. WADE. I oi)\y wished to know. 

Mr. PUGH. Mr. Buchanan had a record of more than twenty-five years of public ser- 
vice. I voted for him, therefore, without the least hesitation; but when my colleague 
demands that I shall accept Mr. Lincoln's character, not as an individual, but as a pub- 
lic man, I may well ask what has he ever done or ever said? Mr. Lincoln may be the 
wisest man of our age— I do not deny it, because I know little of him ; he may be, 
for aught I know, an angel in disguise ; but of thirty millions of people, North and 
South, whose Chief Magistrate he is to be, nine hundred thousand in each million never 
heard of him until the Senator from Illinois rendered him suddenly famous. Mr. Lincoln 
must approve himself in the future, consequently, and not from the past. If the conven- 
tion at Chicago had nominated my colleague, for instance, or any other Senator upon that 
side — I do not wish to engage in your quarrels, and am only speaking in sujiposition — 
I might have known what to expect. As the matter stands, at present, the character of 
Mr. Lincoln, whatever his character may be, affords no guaranty' at all. He was the 
least notable of all the aspirants for the Chicago nomination ; and that, I imagine, se- 
cured his ultimate success. 

But, sir, except Mr. Lincoln's extraordinary luck, in thus securing a Presidential nomina- 
tion, and afterwards (by what causes I need not specify) an election, I know nothing to his 
particular credit or discredit, as a politician, except the paragraph quoted by the Senator 
from Oregon [Mr. Lank] yesterday afternoon. That may be, and is, very essential in 
connection with what I have jtist inquired. In a speech, delivered upon sufficient 
deliberation, at a State convention of his party, in Springfield, Illinois, on the Hth of 
June, 1858, Mr. Lincoln used language which now requires, at least, some explanation. 
He referred to what is called, in ordinary parlance, the slavery agitation. He said : 

"In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis eliall have been reached and passed . 'A house divided 
ftgainst itself cannot stand.' I believe this Government cannot endure, perniaueutlv, lialf slave and half 
free. 1 dd not expect the Union to be dissolved— I do not expect the house to foil— but I do ex])oct it will 
eeaso to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Kither the opponents of slavery will 
arrest the future spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the 
course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all 
the States, old as well as new. North as well as J-'outh."' 

Mr. Lincoln spoke here, indubitably and entirely, of slavery in the States where it now 
exists. We have no qtiestion respecting the extension of slavery into Territories inhab- 
ited or uninhabited. Mr. Lincoln compares our Federal Government to a divided house, 
•which, in his opinion, cannot stand. Now, sir, what divides our house? Only the ex- 



istence of slavery in some States and its non-existence in others. That division always 
existed ; it existed at the first hour of the Federal Government, when merely eleven 
States, out of thirteen, had ratified our present Oonstitution. It will continue to exist as ■ 
long as there is one State, in the whole Union, maintaining the institution of slavery 
while others do not. It is not a question, therefore, whether the iustilution of slavery 
shall or shall not be extended into Territories now free ; my colleague might as well 
abandon such disputations. The division of which Mr. Lincoln speaks, in our house, al- 
ways existed ; and, in all human probability, if the house should stand, will continue ' 
forever. Mr. Lincoln confesses, in terms, that it is slavery which divides the house. 

" I believe [said lie] this Government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free." 
That is a curious style of adjective, and I give him credit for its invention. 

" I do not e.xpect the Union to be dissolved ; I do not expect the house to fall.". 

Why not ? Whj' should not our divided house fall in pieces ? Why does not a Gov- 
ernment which cannot endure permanently, and therefore must fell, now fall at once? 
Mr, Lincoln avoids the logical conclusion of his own premises in a simple, and if true, 
a conclusive manner. That is, to extirpate slavery wherever it now exists. 

" I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided." 

How can it cease to be divided ? Only, as all must answer, by the emancipation of 
slaves within the States where they now exist. The division cannot cease in any other 
way ; and Mr. Lincoln, with a boldness which I admire, confesses the fact. 

" It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery vfill arrest the further 
spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate. 
extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well 
as new, North as well as South." •- . 

Mr. Lincoln preludes all this by a sentence which I have once read, and now read 
again : 

" In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed." 

Senators, we are in that " crisis" now ; we are passing through it. The " crisis" o f 
Mr. Lincoln has come on us, and upon the whole country, by the fact of his election. 
It is for him, consequently, and for his political supporters, here and elsewhere, to affirm 
or to repudiate the doctrine which I have just elaborated. I implore you. Senators of 
the Republican party, for your own sakes, for the sake of your wives and children, as 
well as mine, for the sake of our country. North and South, to unite with the Senator 
from Kentucky [Mr. Crittenden] in terms of honorable conciliation and settlement. I 
am no partisan ; I was once ; but, as you all know, my party is distracted, and I fear • 
hopelessly destroyed. I ask you to give the people of the slaveholdlng States additional 
guaranties — such as they ought to have, under the Constitution of the United States, 
and such as it is eminently proper, in the circumstances, that you should propose, or, at 
least, should accept. 

Heretofore, under the administration of other Presidents, and of all other parties, 
Federal and Republican, Whig and Democratic, slavery in some of the States has never 
been thought so to divide our national house that it should, necessarily, either be abol- 
ished or extended. It has been regarded as a subject of local concernment ; and, so far 
from estimating it as a source of weakness, all parties have heretofore concurred in esti- 
mating it as an essential element of strength. 

My colleague objects that the complaints of the Southern people are indefinite, and 
their apprehensions extremely vague. Perhaps so ; but the question ought to be not 
how an account can be settled between them and us, as between two hucksterers, but 
whether, in a spirit of amity, of generous earnestness, ay, sir, in a spirit of wisdom, we 
"will now redress complaints which, although indefinite, are not unfounded, and soothe 
apprehensions which are all the more dangerous because they are inexpressible. I 
commend my colleague to these words of a man who wrote as elegantly as he thought 
profoundly : 

"As for discontentments, they are in the politic body like to humors in the natural, which are apt to 
gather a preternatural heat, and to inflame ; and let no piince measure the danger of them by this, whether 
they be just or unjust, for that were to imagine people to be too reasonable, who do often spurn at their own 
good; nor yet by this, whether the griefs whereupon they rise be, in fact, great or small ; for they are the 
most dangerous discontentments, where the fear is greater than the feeling : Dolendi modus, timendi non 
item. Besides, in great oppressions, the same things that provoke the patience do withal mate the courage : 
but in fears it is not so. Neither let any prince or State be secure concerning discontentments, because they 
have been often, or ha^been long, and yet no peril hath ensued; for as it is true that every vapor or fume 
doth not turn into a storm, so it is nevertheless true that storms, though they blow over divers times, yet 
may fall at last ; and, as the Spanish proverb noteth well, the cord breaketh at the last by the weakest 
pull." — Bacon, Essay on Seditions and Troubles. 

In this case, also, the people of the slaveholdlng States are under greater apprehen- 
Eion for the future than resentment for the past. I ask you of the Republican party, 



y 



8 

therefore to express, by some constitutional amendment, what you are now so profuse in 
declaring by speeches. You must do that ; nothing else can be effectual, or give any 
satisfaction. Do not flatter yourselves because there have been controversies respecting 
slavery in time past, and these have been safely settled. We are now at an end of such 
controversies, one way or another. Mr. Lincoln's election may be no substantial griev- 
ance ; but remember the Spanisli proverb, and beware lest that prove " the weakest pull" 
by which, at last, the silver cord of our Union is broken forever. 

Senators ! I do not wish to offend you, but I assure you that a vast responsibility is 
upon your shoulders, and you cannot escape it. Why should you not join the rest of us 
in some reasonable plan of adjustment and conciliation ? You have the power, this day, 
to save or to destroy tiie Government. You rejjresent a victorious party, and can afford 
to be generous. All other political organizations have been shivered to fragments within 
the last twelve months, and to that, more than to any other cause, your succes.^ is due. 
You are about to become the Administration party, and may, if you act wisely, cbntiuue 
in power for a long time. But you cannot continue as you have commenced. 

The subject of slavery must cease to be a subject of partizan dispute. It involves 
questions too dangerous to be longer agitated. If we do not settle this controversy now, 
and upon a fair basis, it will find a solution of its own, and at our expense. 

Mr. WADE. We are to be on bail for good behavior, 1 suppose? 

Mr. PUGII. Well, sir, what is the objection to your giving such bail ? It cannot be 
forfeited while your good behavior continues. 

Mr. WADE. ' Not till you break the jjcace.' 

Mr. PUGH. The peace has been broken already, and you must aid us in restoring it. 
If you intend to behave well, for the next four years, you can have no reasonable objec- 
tion to giving bail ; if you do not, there is all the more necessity for it. Here is a con- 
troversy comparaltle to none other. If your party had no mission except to wage it, for 
six or seven years past, A'our party is now dead You have gained a victory; but by the 
very necessities of the case, that victory must be the last. You cannot proceed another 
step in that direction ; whereas, by disposing of the confroversy at once, and before Mr. 
Lincoln's term, you will have an opportunity for initiating other and more profitable 
issues. The advantage of a party in administration is that it can choose the best side 
of every new question ; the opposition must take the other side, or decline any contest. 
You have it in your power. Senators, thus to found a great political party; but if you 
adhere to the policy which my colleague announced, there will be nothing left, of all 
your strength, in two years. 

Consider, also, the imminency of this crisis. The telegraph may report, in fipe min- 
utes, that one State has abandoned our Confederacy ; abandoned it, at all events, as far 
aa she can. Five other States, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and Louisiana, 
are soon to choose delegates and assemble conventions, in order to follow in the path by 
which South Carolina has gone. Arkansas and Texas, I doubt not, will join them. The 
Legislature of North Carolina is now in session, and has taken measures to arm and 
e(iuip the militia of that State for immediate service. The Legislatures of Virginia and 
Tennessee have been summoned by the Governors of those States, and will be in .session 
very soon. Is it not your duty, as men upon whom the responsibility of administration 
will be devolved in loss than three months, to avoid now, by conciliation, what you may 
not be able to avoid, hereafter, even by drawing the sword ? It would be a crown of 
honor to any man, for all his life time, that he had relieved such earnest apprehension, 
and given peace to so many thousands. 

My colleague declares, however, that the day of compromise is past. Then, sir, the 
day of Union is past ; for the Union was founded upon compromise, and cannot be main- 
tained without compromise. The most essential provisions of the Constitution are com- 
promises ; the Government itself, in all its shape and proportions, is a vast compromise. 
One of the noblest legacies bequeathed to us, by the Father of his Country, is the letter 
with which he communicated the Constitution of the United States to the old Congress 
of the Confederation ; and from that, let us ascertain the principles upon which the Con- 
stitution was inaugurated: 

In Convention, September 17, 1787. 

Sir: We Imvc now tlio Lonor to Bubiiiit to the consideration of the United States in Congress iissembled 
that Coiistitutiou whicli lius uppearcHl to us the most advisable. >, 

The friends of our country Imve long Been and desired, that the power of making war, peace, and treaties; 
that of levying money and regulating commerce; and the correspondent executive and judicial authorities, 
ebould be fully aud elfectually vested in the General Government of the Union ; but the impropriety of del- 
egating such extensive trusts to one body of men, is evident. Ilenee results the necessity of a difl'erc-at 
organization. 

It is obviously impracticable, in the Federal Oovernment of these States, to secure all rights of independ- 
ent sovereignty to each, and yet provide for the interest and safety of all. Individuals entering into society 
Uiust give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest. The mayuitude of the sacrifice must depend as well on 



situation and circumstances, as on the object to be obtained. It is at all times difficnlt to draw with preci- 
sion the line between those risl'ta which must be surrendered, and those wluch may be reserved ; and on 
the present occasion this diiticulty was increased by a difiference among the several States as to their situa- 
tion, extent, habits, and particular interests. . .u . i • , ^ .,, „,*<.=* 
In all our deliberatious on this subject, we kept steadily in our view that which appears to us the greatest 
interest of every true American, the consolidation of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, 
safety perhaps our national existence. This important consideration, seriously and deeply impressed on our 
niindV led each State in the convention to be less rigid on points of inferior magnitude than might have 
been otherwise expected, and thus the Constitution which we now present, is the result of a spirit of amity 
and of that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered mdis- 

That it will meet the full and entire approbation of every State, is not, perhaps, to be expected : but eaeh 
will doubtless consider that, had her interest been alone consulted,'the consequences might have been par- 
ticularly disagreeable or injurious to others. That it is liable to as few exceptions as could reasonably have 
been expected, we hope and believe ; that it may promote the lasting welfare of that country so dear to us 
all, and secure her freedom and happiness, is our most ardent wish. 
■With great respect, we have the honor to be, sir, your Excellency's most obedient and humble servants, 
^ ^ ' GEORGE WASHINGTON, 

President, (hy unanimous or(Jer of the Convention.) 

Those gentlemen, upon both sides, who declare that the daj' of compromise is past, avow 
sentiments clearly unconstitutional; for it was by means of compromise and conciliation, 
regard being had" to all the States, and to their different habits, interests, and situation, 
that the Constitution was formed ; and in that spirit, at all times, should the legislatioQ 
of Congress proceed. 

But my colleague complains of the weakness of past compromises; and the Senator 
from New Hampshire, taking up the piteous tale, wished to know whether, in case the 
proposition of my honorable friend from Kentucky should be adopted, it would be more 
or less sacred th.an the act of Congress by which the Missouri compromise line was first 
established. Mr. President, I will not engage in crimination on this subject; but,_grant-;^ 
ing the truth of all that my colleague and the Senator from New Hampshire have said, now 
answer : Lei us revive the Missouri compromise in all its principle and effect; lei ns pui it into 
the Constitution of ike United States ; and let us declare thai it shall be unalterable, except by 
the consent of all the States. We shall thus avoid the weakness of which my colleague 
complains, "and restore to the Senator from New Hampshire the lost one for whom he has 
mourned. 

But my colleague says that he will not amend the Constitution of the United States, 
because it is quite good enough for him. I doubt not ; it is good enough for me, also, or 
any one else. But, sir, there is a vast diflference between altering the principles of our 
Constitution and merely supplying such omissions as time and actual experience have 
disclosed. That is necess.ary, oftentimes, in order that the principles may be preserved, 
or, at least, be carried into full effect. The whole subject of Territorial government is 
extra-constitutinnal. It was not foreseen, in 1787, that our domains would extend from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean ; and, therefore, no provision was made respecting the 
government of T^ritories or colonies. 

In regard to the redelivery of fugitive slaves, the fault is not in Congress, or anywhere 
in the Federal Government ; it is that some of the States have aggressed upon the terms 
of compact, as well as upon the rights of their confederates. The Constitution lacks a 
power of self-vindication in that particular. 

It appears to me that the proposition of my honorable friend from Kentucky ought to 
be accepted, at once, by both sections, by all parties, and even fragments of parties. 
The Nortliern States, for which the Republican party claims to speak, desire Territories 
suitable to free labor, and from which slavery is excluded. The proposition complies 
with that demand. The Southern States desire colonies also, and that property in slaves 
shall be reudered secure wliile the Territorial organization continues. Both demands are 
granted by the proposition. In addition, the two forms of colonization are so separated 
that there never can be any conflict between them. I hope that the Senator from Ken- 
tucky will express his proposition in such words as that it will execute its own purpose, 
and exclude all legislation by Congress one way or another. I never wish to hear 
of the subject again in these halls. 

My honorable friend from Illinois [Mr. Douglas] will thus obtain the principle of non- 
intervention by Congress with slavery in the Territories. The whole question will be 
taken hence ; and, at last, after more than forty years of tribulation, of unseemly quar- 
rels and wrangles, in this House and in the other, we may hope for eternal peace. ^ I ob- 
tain "squatter" sovereignty, also, by the proposition ; although that, I hope, will not , 
prejudice the Senator from Texas [Mr. Wigfall] against it. The Territorial Legisla- , 
tures of Nebraska and Kansas, upon the one side, and of New Mexico, including Arizona, ' 
upon the other, have provided, by their enactments, precisely what is here declared. 
Thus all ought to be satisfied, and an end of controversy made. The adjustment will " 
not be disturbed in our time, and probably never. 



8 

therefore, to express, by some constitutional amendment, what you are now so profuse in 
declaring by speeches. You must do that ; nothing else can be effectual, or give any 
Batisfaction. Do not flatter yourselves because tliere have been controversies respecting 
slavery in time past, and these have been safely settled. We are now at an end of such 
controversies, one way or another. Mr. Lincoln's election may be no substantial griev- 
ance ; but remember the Spanish proverb, and beware lest tbatprove " the weakest pull" 
bj which, at last, the silver cord of our Union is broken forever. 

Senators ! I do not wish to offend you, but I assure you that a vast responsibility is 
upon your shoulders, and you cannot escape it. Why should you not join the rest of us 
in some reasonable plan of adjustment and conciliation ? You have the power this day 
to save or to destroy tlie Government. You rejjresent a victorious party and can afford 
to be generous. All other political organizations have been shivered to fr'agment'j withia 
the last twelve months, and to that, more than to any other cause, your success is due 
You are about to become the Administration party, and may, if you act wisely continue 
in power for a long time. But you cannot continue as you have commenced ' 

The subject of slavery must cease to be a subject of partizan dispute, it involves 
questions too dangerous to be longer agitated. If we do not settle this controversy now 
and ujion a fair basis, it will find a solution of its own, and at our expense. ' 

ilr. WADE. We are to be on bail for good behavior, I suppose? 

Mr. PUGII Well, sir, what is the objection to your giving such bail ? It cannot be 
lorleited while your good behavior continues. 
Mr. WADE. Not till you break the peace. 

Mr. PUGH The peace has been broken already, and you must aid us in restoring it. 
If you intend to behave well, for the next four years, you can have no reasonable objec- 
tion to giving bail ; if you do not, there is all the more necessity for it. Here i« a con- 
troversy comparable to none other. If your party had no mission except to wage it for 
SIX or seven years past, your party is now dead You have gained a victory ; but bvthe 
yery necessities of_ the case, that victory must be the last. You cannot proceed anJther 
step in that direction ; whereas, by disposing of the controversy at once, and before Mr. 
Lincoln s term you will have an opportunity for initiating o{her and more profitable 
issues. The advantage of a party in administration is that it can choose the best side 
of every new_ question ; the opposition must take the other side, or decline any contest. 
You have it in your power Senators, thus lo found a great political party; but if you 
adhere to the policy which my colleague announced, there will be nothing left of all 
your strength, in two years. s > '>■'' 

Consider, also, the imminency of this crisis. The telegraph may report in fiw min- 
utes that one State has abandoned our Confederacv : abandoned it, at all events as far 
as she can. Five other States Alabama, Florida," Georgia, Mississippi, and Louisiana, 
are soon to choo.se delegates and assemble conventions, in order to follow in the path by 
which South Carolina has gone. Arkansas and Texas, I doubt not, will join them. The 
Legislature of North Carolina is now in session, and has taken measures to arm and 
eiiuip the rmlitia of that State for immediate service. The Legislatures of Virginia and 
Tennessee have been summoned by the Governors of those States, and will be in session 
very soon. Is it not your duty, as men upon whom the responsibility of administration 
will be devolved in less than three months, to avoid now, by conciliation, what vou may 
not be able to avoid, hereafter, even by drawing the sword? It would he a cVown of 
honor to any man, for all his life time, that he had relieved such earnest apprehension 
and given peace to so many thousands. l^pi^-ueubiou, 

My coHeague declares, however, that the day of compromise is past. Then, sir, the 
fl^^ It ? ^" ' °' '' ^^"u°" ''■^' ^'^""'^"'^ "P«" compromise, and cannot be main- 
,rZ?,.r th r ''"'^'■''°"?-. ?' "°'^ ''''"^'^^ provisions of the Constitution are com- 
Fw .r .V *^^f;°7,^"™^.°t itselt, in all its shape and proportions, is a vast compromise. 
w?th L 1 1 '' '^' •"' ''rir'''^^'^ *° "'' ^y '^' ^^^^ther of his Countrv, is the letter 
of he Conll" communicated the Constitution of the United States to the old Congress 

Junf-lJl ' 'T'^ ^'"""^ ^^^^> ^^* "' ascertain the principles upon which the Con- 

stilution was inaugurated: ' i i 

o,. TCf I, , I^ CojJVENTio.v, September 17, 17S7. 

tl^oIZ^^n^^ul^^J:^:^'::"^^'' '*"' ''''"^'\. '*'** *^^ power of making wa'r. peace, and treaties; 
ILnia L fu"; Z ofrc'c" all; vo* f i,'?h^ reni.-T.' p"'' cor,es„on,leut e.vecutive aud judiei;i authorities 
egatins such kteiisivo truZ tn nl L f '^"'^''n'^ the Union : but the impropriety of del- 

oFganiSation '-^''""^" *"'''''" *" °"« body of men, la evident. Uenco results the necessity of a diflereat 

ent'slrv.^'elJrty ^o'TfrLnfvx't nr >vf/f "f^ Govornn,ent of these States, to secure all rights of independ- 

muat g ve up a sliaro of libmfto m et'rv ''.i*^'' '"'"'■^^t ^"1 ^^^f^fy "f »"• Individuals entering into society 

w>i give up a Buaro ol libtitj to pieseivethe rest. The maguitude of the sacrifice must depend as welloa 



situation and circumstances, as on the object to be obtained. It is at all times difficult to draw with preci- 
sion the line between those rights which must be surrendered, and those wluch may be reserved; and on 
the present occasion this difficulty was increased by a difference among the several States as to their situa- 
tion, extent, habits, and particular interests. . .u . , • , ^ *u „„f<>„f 
In all our deliberations on this subject, we kept steadily in our view that which appears to us the gieateat 
interest of every true American, the consolidation of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, 
safety perhaps nur national existence. This important consideration, seriously and deeply impressed on our 
minds' led each State in the convention to be less rigid on points of inferior magnitude than might have 
been otherwise expected, and thus the Constitution which we now present, is the result of a spirit of amity 
and of that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered mdis- 

^^That it will meet the full and entire approbation of every State, is not, perhaps, to be expected : but eaeh 
will doubtless consider that, had her interest been alone consulted, 'the consequences might have been par- 
ticularly disagreeable or iniurious to others. That it is liable to as few exceptions as could reasonably have 
been expected, we hope and believe ; that it may jiromote the lasting welfare of that country so dear to us 
all, and secure her freedom and happiness, is our most ardent wish. 
With great respect, we have the honor to be, sir, your Excellency's most obedient and humble servants, 
^ ^ ' GEORGE WASHINGTON, 

President, (by unanivwtis order of the Omvention.) 

Those gentlemen, upon both sides, who declare that the day of compromise is past, avow 
sentiments clearly unconstitutional; for it was by means of compromise and conciliation, 
regard being had to all the States, and to their different habits, interests, and situation, 
that the Constitution was formed ; and in that spirit, at all times, should the legislation 
of Congress proceed. 

But my colleague complains of the weakness of past compromises ; and the Senator 
from New Hampshire, taking up the piteous tale, wished to know whether, in case the 
proposition of my honorable friend from Kentucky should be adopted, it would be more 
or less sacred than the act of Congress by which the Missouri compromise line was first 
established. Mr. President, I will not engage in crimination on this subject ; but, grant- 
ing the truth of all that my colleague and the Senator from New Hampshire have said, now 
answer : Let us revive (he Missouri covipromise in all its principle and effect; let us put it into 
the Constitution of the United States ; and let us declare that it shall be unalterable, except by 
the consent of all the States. We shall thus avoid the weakness of which my colleague 
complains, and restore to the Senator from New Hampshire the lost one for whom he has 
mourned. 

But my colleague says that he will not amend the Constitution of the United States, 
because it is quite good enough for him. I doubt not ; it is good enough for me, also, or 
any one else. But, sir, there is a vast difference between altering the principles of our 
Constitution and merely supplying such omissions as time and actual experience have 
disclosed. That is necessary, oftentimes, in order that the principles may be preserved, 
or, at least, be carried into full effect. The whole subject of Territorial government is 
extra-constitutional. It was not foreseen, in 1787, that our domains would extend from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean ; and, therefore, no provision was made respecting the 
government of T^ritories or colonies. 

In regard to the redelivery of fugitive slaves, the fault is not in Congress, or anywhere 
in the Federal Government; it is that some of the States have aggressed upon the terms 
of compact, as well as upon the rights of their confederates. The Constitution lacks a 
power of self- vindication in that particular. 

It appears to me that the proposition of my honorable friend from Kentucky ought to 
be accepted, at once, by both sections, by all parties, and even fragments of parties. 
The Northern States, for which the Republican party claims to speak, desire Territories 
suitable to free labor, and from which slavery is excluded. The proposition complies 
with that demand. The Southern States desire colonies also, and that property in slaves 
shall be rendered secure while the Territorial organization continues. Both demands are 
granted by the proposition. In addition, the two forms of colonization are so separated 
that there never can be any conflict between them. I hope that the Senator from Ken- 
tucky will express his proposition in such words as that it will execute its own purpose, 
and exclude all legislation by Congress one way or another. I never wish to hear 
of the subject again in these halla. 

My honorable friend from Illinois [Mr. Douglas] will thus obtain the principle of non- 
intervention by Congress with slavery in the Territories. The whole question will be 
taken hence ; and, at last, after more than forty years of tribulation, of unseemly quar- 
rels and wrangles, in this House and in the other, we may hope for eternal peace. ^ I ob- 
tain "squatter" sovereignty, also, by the proposition ; although that, I hope, will not 
prejudice the Senator from Texas [Mr. Wigfall] against it. The Territorial Legisla- 
tures of Nebraska and Kansas, upon the one side, and of New Mexico, including Arizona, 
upon the other, have provided, by their enactments, precisely what is here declared. 
Thus all ought to be satisfied, and an end of controversy made. Ttie adjustment will 
not be disturbed in our time, and probably never. 



10 

My colleague thinks it would be dishonorable in Mr. Lincoln's friends to accept terras 
ot compromise before his assumption of the Presidential chair. I think not The aue^ 
tion IS not so much whether a compromise shall be made before or after Mr Lincoln's 
innufruration ; as whether, at this session of Congress, in view of so much agitation and 
alarm ihroughout the country, in view of a long recess from the 4th of March until the 
first Monday of December next, in view of the fact also that this compromise, if it should 
LVli'riTsr .^r'' w'H .T-quire ratihcation by the Legislatures or by 'conventions of the 
several states, we will now commence the good work of conciliation and peace Mr 
Jefferson did not think himself dishonored because his own election; in 1800 disclosed a 

t'::\aL!:r;o'r;^;'„Tif- "- ''- ^^"""^'' ^' ""^^' ^-^ "-''^ ''- ^^'^'-^-'-' ---- 

I shudder Mr. President and Senators, at the evil times on which we have fallen 
1 0-day, as I said, or at farthest to-morrow, the State of South Carolina will separate 
irom our Union, so far as she has any power of separation. Five, and probablv seven 
other Stales will follow her in less than a month. Is that all ? I know not • God only' 
knows \\e may acquiesce in the separation of six, eight, or twelve, States ' acquiesce 
peaceably, and wiake such division as we choose, or can make, of the property owned 
by al the States in common. That happens ordinarily with persons who cannot be re- 
conciled. Or, and that is what I hope and fondly desire, we can so adjust all contro- 
versy in regard to fugitive slaves, in regard to slavery in the Territories, in reoard to 
the protection and domestic tranquillity of the slaveholding States, as to preveut^farther 
separation. We may retain all the States, except South Carolina, and in time, if not im- 
mc.iiately, win her back. She has acted rashly, and, I might almost say, ungovernably • 
but sue lias acted lu a moment of overwhelming apprehension. Or, last of all we can 
wage Wiir on So.kih Carolina, and on every other State which secedes. The Senator 
irom Illinois [Mr. Trumbull] inquired this morning who had proposed to make war? 
VVe I, sir, war generally makes itself, and before the parties intend it. Con<rress mav 
declare war, may declare that war actually exists, or shall exist; but the shedding of 
blood IS scarcely an affair of so much calculation.' 

It is not of the slightest consequence, in my estimation, whether we send the Army of 
ttie Lnited States to disperse the Legislature or the Convention of South Carolina or as 
1 understood my friend from Tennessee [.Mr. Johnso.v] to propose on yesterday send it 
to carry tlie mails in that State; whether we make hostile demonstrations' against 
tne city ot Charleston, or insist on levying taxes from a people who do not, and will not 
obey our Government. It can make no difference. We are not children ; and we ouc^ht 
to be men of practical sense. Why endeavor to disguise a fact with mere words f I 
care not whether you call it coercion, or collecting the revenue, or defendino- public 
property, or enforcing the laws ; you know, and I know, that it means war • and that 
war wi 1 follow it. South Carolina will be supported by other States, and, in a little 
while, by all in which slavery exists. I call upon you. Senators, from the Northern and 
Jrom the Southern extremes, to remember those of us whose homes and families are upon 
the border of the slaveholding and non-slaveholding States. Assist lis in averting a 
calamity which must fall chiefly upon us : you may reason upon the subject, °we 
cannot. j i •v' 

Mr. President, I do not engage in the discussion whether or no South Carolina, or any 
other State, can rightfully secede from the Confederation. I will not stretch forth my 
hand rashly to draw aside the veil behind which I know there stands the Atlas of State 
sovERKiGNTY Supporting upon his shoulders alone the entire firmament of our Federal 
system That giant has been mute for nearly the life of a generation ; but if you will 
listen, he seems to move uneasily, and as if he were about to speak. I do not wish to 
hear his voice; it is the voice of the earthquake or the avalanche. Instead of putting 
aside the veil which now hides him, 1 content myself with reading the inscription, 
which should warn every man not to intrude, unnecessarily, into those sacred precincts : 

rciL^tci*"^"/,^"''^";.''' '''* '^''"*''''"''««' "/ «'•'«"' rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others 

in-v'fdTiZZ T' ''''^''0"}?'^,^" «^« ^«'''«« states by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are re- 
tei lea 10 t/ie .stales respectively, or to the people." 

If my honorable friend from Tennessee [.Mr. Johnson] ever has occasion to speak on 
the subject again, I advise him to look in the Constitution, not for the authority of a 
State to secede, Init for a prohibition of it. 

Let uti by all means avoid the discussion of such topics ; they do not belong to us. In 
Grea,t liritam, questions of constitutional law are only questions of principle ; because 
i-arliameut IS said to be omnipotent, and a law may be unconstitutional without being 
void, hut in our ^'ountry of written constitutions and limited legislative powers, we are 
eo much accustomed to compare text with text merely, that we argue the most solemn 



11 

issues rather as lawyers than as politicians. The Senator from Texas [Mr. Wigfall] 
appealed to me for instance, to vindicate the constitutional right of South Carolina to 
secede without being attacked. Well, sir, when South Carolina secedes— as I doubt not 
she will— what farther interest has she, by the terms of her own argument, in the Con- 
stitution of the United States ? And if she should thus become, as she claims, a wholly 
independent sovereignty, I must decide all questions of peace and war without any con- 
sideration of her welfare— because she, by her own act, excludes herself trom my con- 
sideration—and solelv with regard to the welfare and interest of the States which re- 
main It is all a political and not a legal question. No constitution ever included the 
means of its own destruction ; and nine-tenths of the human family avoid making wills 
or testaments because they abhor the contemplation of death. Whether a State can or 
cannot secede, and what others may do toward her or she toward them— these are ques- 
tions behind the Constitution of the Dnited States, and, if I may so say, without irrever- 
ence far above it. They are questions of political science, and not of constitutional con- 
struction ; questions upon which empires are often dismembered and dynasties over- 
thrown. Our question should be one of avoiding civil war; of restoring brotherhood 
and peace • of rebuilding the Union upon its former foundations. Why spend onr pre- 
cious moments in abstract disquisition ; in citing the text of constitutions and laws ; in 
searchin<r old mustv precedents which can have no pertinency in so fearful a crisis .' i 
take leave to doubt, Mr. President and Senators, whether it be the part of wisdom, at 
any time, to decide upon controversies affecting the life of our Government, or the es- 
sential order of societv, as if these were questions of customary legislation, or could ever 
be resolved bv processes of strict and regular analysis. An eminent scholar, as well as 
a profound metaphysician, Sir James Mackintosh, has aptly admonished us on that siib- 
ject. I commend his words to all who would wisely ponder the issue of our time : 

« The causes which the politician has to consider are, above all othors, multiplied, mutable, minute, sub- 
tile and if I may so speak, evanescent; perpetually changing their form, and varying their combinationB ; 
losing their nature, while they keep their name ; exhibiting the most different consequences m the endless 
variety of men and nations on whom they operate; in one degree of strength producing the most signal 
benefit, and, uuder a slight variation of circumstances, the most tremendous mischiefs. Ihey admit, in- 
deed of being reduced to theorv; but to a theory formed on the most extensive views, of the most compre- 
hensive and flexible principles." to embrace all their varieties, and to fit all their rapid transmigrations— a 
theory of which the most fundamental maxim is distrust in itself, and deference for practical prudence. — 
Discourse on the Law of Nature and Nations. 

And SO, sir, in what I have been accustomed to consider as one of the ablest numbers 
of the Federalist, written by Alexander Hamilton, I find some words more immediately 
applicable. In exhibiting the defects of the old Confederation, Mr. Hamilton said : 

" Even in those confederacies which have been composed of members smaller than many of our counties, 
the principle of legislation for sovereign States, supported by military coercion, has never been found effect- 
ual. It has rarely been attempted tobe employed but against the weaker members; and iu most instances 
attempts to coerce the refractory and disobedient have been the signals of bloody wars, in which one half of 
the confederacy has displayed its banners against the other." 

He argues thence the necessity of a new Government which can act upon individuals 
directly, and anticipates the objection that the Legislature of some State might inter- 
pose its authority to defeat the execution of a Federal law. There is, he wisely ob- 
served, an important difference between non-action and interposition. If the Federal 
Government cannot proceed without the assistance of the State Legislatures— as it could 
not under the Articles of Confederation— mere neglect, or inattention or carelessness, 
will constantly frustrate all measures of common defense and general welfare ; whereas, 
in regard to the interposition of any State, affirmatively, he thought the instances would 
be very few, and hardly capable of "redress. But you shall hear his own words : 

"If opposition to the National Government should arise from the disorderly conduct of refractory or se- 
ditioub individuals, it could be overcome by the same means which are daily employed against the same evU 
under the State governments. The magistracy being equally the ministers of the law of the land, from 
whatever source it might emanate, would doubtless be as ready to guard the national as the local regula- 
tions from the inroads of private licentiousness. As to those partial commotions and insurrections, which- 
Bometinies disquiet society from the intrigues of an inconsiderable faction, or from sudden or occ."isional ill- 
humors that do not affect the great body of the community, the General Government could command more 
extensive resources for the suppression of disturbances of that kind, than would be iu the power of any 
single member. And as to those mortal feuds which, in certain conjunctures, spread a conflagration through 
a whole nation, or through a very large portion of it, proceeding either from weighty causes of discontent 
given by the Government or from the contagion of some violent popular paroxysm, they do not fall within 
any ordinary rules of calculation. When they happen they commonly amount to levolutions and dismem- 
berments of empire. No form of government can always either avoid or control them. It is in vain to 
Lope to guard against events too mighty for human foresight or precaution; and it would be idle to object 
to a Government because it could not perform impossibilities." 

1 will refer also to the authority of John Quincy Adams. In his fourth annual mes- 
sage, on the 2d of December, 1828, alluding to the controversy between the United . 
States and the State of Georgia respecting the Cherokee lands, Mr. Adams said : 



12 

"The United States of America, and the people of every ^tate of whirh ti,^ 
them sovereign Powers. The legislative author! vnftl./whtl ,- ■ ^^"^ '*™ compose.^, are each of 

grant..! thenfin the common Con. tiu.tion The Lll- nVm^^^^^ "^ ^''"Sre^' '•'"'er auDiority 

deriving their authority from th.' Stu^ion of th State ^/ach is sove-^'"'" ''« ""•""^--J ^y Assemhliea 
The dietrihutiou of power between them presuppose that the.^Tuthor^fie'^w^^^^ """""• '\' °"'" l'™^i»=e.- 
other. The members of the State and General GovcVnmeUar^^ all under 1'^^'.'°''^" '" ''''"•"'on.v ^vith each 
auce is due to the one and to the other. X ca rof a c\ 1 0)"%^ w en befe two IZ''"^'"''''- '^?'' ""'•^•- 
posed, nor l,..s any provision been made for it in our institutions ; as a vrtuoVsn-^^n? '"''' ''''° '"P" 
isted more than hve centuries without a law for the punishment of parricide "°'"°' """'' "''■ 

More than once, however, in the progress of our history, have the neonlo =.n i r • , . 
more States, in n.oments of excitement, been instigated to this'conflic and t'ha Zin^^f'^l^^'T "^""'' '"" 
pulse have been allegations that the acts of Congress to be resisted were untonstitn?^^^? '^''''"S this im- 
one State have ever delegated to their Legislature the power of prouounci",-rn act .f r ^""^ "" 

tional ; but they have delegated to them powers by the e.xercise of which the pvee'nf f^J'u'', "uconstitu- 
gress wHlnn tl.e State may be resisted. If we suppose the case of such confl'cUnlwTsKH.n^ ?T 

the corresponding executive and judicial authori ies, patriotism and r7hSirrof .n?n Iv. ' «"«'?'"^'i ^J 
c..dU,.m in which the parties would be placed, and 'f^om that"fThi'i%"rrb^tL";:i>L'h'SV^Ts ^^ 

My friend from Tennessee laid great stress upon the authority of Jackson In the 

u: Tr^-^!:Tz s^^w^r i^i°:L:d t^'ihc^rr^f's^jL^^^^^V'' ^r-^^ '^«""- ^^ 

to another, as members of one politica family muh.X . ,n.p', k "*'f °' °' ^^"^ '"l'''''^ ■'^'*'^^ '^*=*'-' 0°^ 
other. Hence, the citizens ofevery State Xu^/stur^^^^^^ P"^*""'^ ^^^ happiness of each 

bility or oflend the just pride of L people of other ^tti^an^^^ *° ^'^""'J '^'^ ««"«" 

within their own borders likely to distm'b the trannnil f^wl? h! -^^ ^^ /^ "P°" any proceedinga 

the Union. In a country so extensive as the IlnitlH Sf,l ^ , • ^ P°''t"='il brethren in other portions of 

unquestionable reht to reo-nlntB ifs niun ;„to,„„i "--c ^uu nut penuent states, iiut each State has the 

notSnterferewith^hedghtriflhVe:^^^ 

the sole jud^-e of the measures proper to secure the safety of ts rft.l^n, i , ^n.on, every State must be 
all efforts on the part of the neonle of other %=./„= t^; . a- ^'^'■^'^'^^^'^'^ promote their happiness: and 
calculated to disturb their rX, of property or to n,^t ?n *"^'T ".F"? '^''' institutions, and all measures 
in direct opposition of the spirit in S "Lun^or^as C^^^^^^^^ ^T" T'^ '°*"'"°'" tranquillity, are 

&!SS"t^^rL^.--';^~^SH!^ 

'^'a^l^Z'tX^yo^r cJ^^nrce^t^^des^rl^ r^^^tX^ll^^.^^, '^'^ '" ^'^^ ^^^ "' ^- 

One more authority Mr President, and for my colleague's benefit. Others may object 
to It, but he cannot On the 11th of June, 1858, the Senator from Georgia TMr. ToombsI 
S^ -11 '«"^ discussion with my colleague respecting the reserved rights of the 
States. The Senator from Georgia said : ^ =. ^ ui luo 



the term' nnl ifipr ' Tro % i f .• "'"'^'Y'^ °' ""CUress ; and I take it that he wouk 

goes nulhher to extend his devotion to tho sovereignty of the States as far as I clai 

ji'm'' ^*-^^- ^ '^'^^ ^^ goo'l a nullifier as you are. 
makeVh^'tTH.rJff'^ ^^'""^ *'°,!'^V^- ^' '« 8°°^ doctrine. I think it is a good sign to hear the Senator 

page 2943 ''" " ""° ^^^''■-(^<^»3>-essio?ial Globe, first session Thirty-Fifth Congress, part three, 

iJll' ^'■'^'i'^^f *' ™J; colleague employed the phrase " make war" in speaking of a con- 
troversy which might arise between the State of South Carolina and the Federal Got- 
iZT^L J '• V "" r''"!- ""^ 7"""' '"^ "^y colleague supposed, why not war according to 
llT% ^ \""\'''"''Vn- ■ . ^^''^' ^° "^^' '^^ "^>' colleague proposed, hang the pTis- 
mV ^,^<^ Se'^ator from Illinois [Mr. Trumbull] inquired, this morning, for a defini- 
tion of rebellion. Was not George Washington a rebel by the same argument? And 
yet sir, when the British commander threatened to treat American prisoners, taken in 
battle, as my colleague threatens to treat our Carolina prisoners, if we should have any, 
Lrencral Washington gave notice of retaliation at once. That ended the affair on both sides. 



13 

It is of no real importance, I repeat, whether we commence, or South Carolina com- 
mences. It will be a case of actual war in either event. The questions we have to de- 
cide, consequently, are those which I have propounded : shall we acquiesce in the 
peaceful separation of six States from the rest, or shall we engage in a war of which we 
cannot see the end ; or shall we now address ourselves to the noble and high duty of 
attempting measures of conciliation, reconstructing and laying more deeply, more firm- 
ly than ever, the foundations of the Union as at present constituted, redressing all com- 
plaints, silencing every discontent, and doing this, not as partisans, but (if there be no 
better motive) by an instinct of self-preservation, and an earnest desire to perpetuate the 
Government which has been so valuable to us, the best Government which the heart of 
man could crave. It is no time, sir, in the very crisis of our national existence, to stand 
upon the question who should propose, or who should accept, terms of conciliation. 

My colleague seems to imagine it the duty of the President, under his oath of office, 
to precipitate our whole country into civil war. He said that the President had sworn 
not to know that any State had seceded, or attempted to secede. Well, sir, I should 
like to be informed whereabout an affidavit of such ignorance has been recorded. I 
am not advised of any thing like it. The President is under obligation, assuredly, to 
execute the laws of the land; but can we not suspend the execution o^ any law upon 
the statute-book ? Can we not suspend it for a week, or a month, or six months, or six 
years, if the attempt to execute it, by force of arms, will provoke interminable war? la 
this regard, also, I commend the counsels of John Quincy Adams. He did not imagine, 
while he occupied th^.Presidential chair, that he was under any obligation to provoke, 
or to accept, such dire extremity. He did not believe that the Constitution of the Uni- 
ted States bound him, inevitably, to precipitate the country into civil war. On the con- 
trary, in his special message of February 5, 182*7, Mr. Adams said : 

"In abstaining, at this stage of the proceedings, from the application of any military fuice, I have been 
governed by considerations which will, I trust, meet the concurrence of the Legislature. Among them, one 
of paramount importance has been that these surveys have been attempted ond partly effected under color 
Of legal authority from the State of Georgia. That the surveyors are, therefore, not to be viewed in the 
light of individual and solitary tran.«gi essors. but as the agents of a sovereign State, acting in obedience to 
authority which they believed to be binding upon them. Intimations hiul been given that, should they 
meet with interruption, they would, at all hazards, be sustained by the military force of the State; in 
which event, if the military force of the Union should have b*n employed to iuforce its viol.ated law, a 
confiict must have ensued; which would, in itself, have inflicted a wound upon the Union, and have pre- 
sented the aspect of one of these confederated States at war with the rest. Anxious, above all, to avert this 
etate of things, yet. at the same time, impressed with the deepest conviction of my own duty to take care 
that the laws shall be executed, and the faith of the nation preserved. I have used of the means intrusted 
to the executive for that purpose only those which, without resorting to military force, may vindicate the 
sanctity of the law by the ordinary agency of the judicial tribunals." 

And yet, sir, that was a case in which the Government was striving to maintain 
the plighted faith of a treaty, as against infraction by one of the States. When my col- 
league, or the Senator from Tennessee, assumes, therefore, to treat the act of persons 
bearing the commission of South Carolina as if it were only the act of individuals, I en- 
treat them to consider the pertinent suggestions of Mr, Adams in a similar case. Such 
acts cannot be viewed as the acts of individual .-ind solitary transgressors, but as the 
acts of persons obeying the mandate of a sovereignty, and to an extent which they be- 
Ueve, at least, it is binding upon them. 

It will end in war; begin as it may, it will end in war. This idea of my colleague, that 
theConstitutiou of the United SVMtis, cxproprio vigore, compels the Executive, and even com- 
pels Congress, to engage in hostilities with a part of our own people ; it is amazing to me, 
and utterly revolting. Why, sir, we have absolute discretion whether to declare war or 
to maintain peace in regard to foreign nations. If our citizens are abused, if our terri- 
tory is invaded, or even possessed, by hostile array, we, the Congress of the United States, 
consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives, may, if we deem it essential to 
our own interest, decline to authorize hostilities. Does any one deny that? Why, then, 
are we told that we have not as much liberty in deciding questions of war and peace 
with our fellow-citizens in South Carolina, as in deciding such questions, with foreign 
nations ? A war, too, in which, if my colleague be right, the unfortunate' captives are 
not to be treated as we treat prisoners of another nation, but are to be executed in the 
most Ignominious manner. Mr. President, I have not words to express my abhorrence 
of such a conclusion. 

It is the lesson of history, that whenever a man would commit some atrocity without 
being responsible to his own conscience, he styles it doing God service. Persecutors, in 
all time, have burned or slain the body of their victim in order, as they alleged, to save 
his soul. What no Senator would do, upon his own responsibility, or from his own in- 
chnation — draw the sword upon a whole community of our people, scatter desolation 
and carnage throughout a State which, be her conduct ever so unjustifiable, has, at least, 
Bome cause of complaint— must it occur as if by the inexorable laws of fate ? Where, in 



16 

Senators, I did hope, fondly hope, that instead of refusing to accept terms of concili- 
ation and honorable- compromise ; instead of madly provoking whole States and millions 
of people to what some of you call treason and rebellion ; instead of giving them and 
ourselves to destruction upon the fatal conceit that our oaths to support the Constitution 
of the United States do not even allow us to pause in the presence of an unexampled 
crisis, we should all have agreed, ere this, in the adoption of measures calculated to stay 
the alarm which now pervades the country, and threatens our Union with perpetual 
overthrow. There is yet time ; but time is very precious. Let us determine, first of all 
that we will have no war, no bloodshed, if we are able in any manner to avoid it. War 
is no remedy in such a case; it is always a horrible visitation — horrible when waged for 
the best and' holiest cause; but horrible indeed, and inexpressibly wicked, when waged 
without any cause, and by one portion of our people against another. Let us not hesitate 
to suspend the execution of whatever laws cannot be executed, at present, without vio- 
lence ; submit, if necessary, to a diminution of revenue ; and thus, or farther if neces- 
sary, through aets of generous confidence, avoid all danger of collision between Fede- 
ral and State authorities, soothe apprehension everywhere, and be enabled calmly to 
proceed, by constitutional amendment, to the duty of securing forever the Union we 
shall have rescued, and ultimately restored, if not absolutely preserved. 

Whether I have or have not spoken wisely, for my own sake, as an individual, I have 
now discharged my duty, as I understand it, toward God and my country; beyond that 
in all sincerity, I have not inquired. I believe that the policy which my colleague an- 
nounced — of entertaining no terms of conciliation and compromise, and at th'e same 
time, endeavoring to avoid the responsibility of civil war by charging it upon the Con- 
stitution and the oath we have taken, will drive us all, North as well as South, into an 
abyss where rc-union is impossible, where peace never can be restored, where the liber- 
ties of all the States will be utterly and hopelessly ingulfed. If my colleague'has truly 
expressed the determination of his and my constituents, I shall esteem it no loss, but an 
eminent and glorious distinction, to retire from public service while the flag of the Union 
yet floats above this Capitol, and calls together, in annual session, the ambassadors and 
representatives of thirty-three independeut, free, and equal sovereignties. I have once 
declared to you. Senators, and now repeat, that your separate confederacies. Northern 
or Southern, have no charms for me ; their promises of liberty, security, and endur- 
ance, kindle not my imagination, nor satisfy the desire of my heart. Let me, at least, 
no more frequent this palace after its proud genius shall have departed; lest where 
now, in niche and upon column, or station, or pediment, I behold the sculptured effigies 
of past glory, there blaze forth, as by some horrible enchantment, from stony eyes and 
distorted features, the demon of discord and fiaterual strife ; while, instead of gorgeous 
inscriptions to the Union displayed on every side — above, beneath, and around — I see 
only the fingers of a man's hand-writing over against the candlestick, upon the plaster of 
the wall, such dreadful words as pronounced the doom of Babylon : 

"God hath numbered tht kikgdom, and finished it; thou art weighed in the balances, and art 

FOUND TVAWTING ; THI KINGDOM IS DIVIDED, AND GIVEN TO THE MeDES AND PERSIANS." 

It may be, for a while, that genial suns, and refreshing showers, and the providence of 
times and tjcasons will continue to repay the husbandman for his toil ; that art and sci- 
ence and the comforts of civilization will bless our people as now ; but over all the de- 
stroying angel, which has turned so many realms to deserts, will slowly, silently, inevi- 
tably, extend his pinions, until the fair j)laces of this continent become like the faded 
seats of once imperial Republics in the Old World. 



Printed by L. Towers, If^ashington. 



